WASHINGTON - In a few weeks, American shoppers will be able to look
at a cut of meat or a pound of hamburger and see something they've
never seen before-a label that says where the meat came from.

Starting Sept. 30, food manufacturers and grocery stores have to
comply with a new federal law that requires "Country of Origin
Labeling," or COOL, on beef, pork, chicken and lamb.

The new labels will tell consumers whether their food came from
animals raised in the U.S. or another country. The law also covers
perishable items, such as fruits and vegetables and a variety of nuts.
Some say this will enable consumers to avoid food that, for example,
comes from countries that they have heard have food safety problems. It
also will allow consumers to stick to American-grown food, if that is
their preference.

Because of the complexities of the livestock industry, some product
labels may list multiple countries. That's especially true of ground
beef, because some meat processors combine cuts from a number of
countries to make ground meat and hamburger patties.

Food safety groups have hailed COOL as a necessary step toward
broader consumer education and buying choices. But now they complain
that the Department of Agriculture has defined it as narrowly as
possible.

For example, they say, the agency has defined a host of foods as
"processed," such as mixed frozen vegetables, which exempts them from
the new law.

"When they finalized this rule, they bent over backward to make as
few things be covered as possible," said Michael Hansen, a senior staff
scientist with Consumers Union. "There are giant, giant loopholes in
the law."

Many in the meat industry, these advocates say, have fought the new
labeling law because they don't want consumers to know that they're
buying imported hamburger and beef cuts. The USDA also stood against
COOL, according to Lloyd Day, head of the agency's Agricultural
Marketing Service, because of its projected impact on consumers and its
estimated cost to the food industry: $2.5 billion in the first year.

But Congress has decreed that COOL will take effect on Sept. 30, so
the debate over its merits is largely over. Now the industry is bracing
for COOL's impact.

"We don't know exactly how it's all going to work," said Colin
Woodall, the executive director of legislative affairs for the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association. "And we won't know until it's fully up
and running."